That's That!

Sometimes cited as the rarest of the Laurel & Hardy movies, this was made from out-takes as a gag gift for Mr. Laurel in 1938 as a birthday surprise. I spotted excerpts form several movies, but it seems to have been predominantly from THE LAUREL-HARDY MURDER CASE. The Boys can be seen breaking up over the performances and then gamely continuing on, and repeated shots of James Finlayson glaring at something or other.

I suppose if you're a L&H completist, you'll want to see this if oly for bragging rights. If so, several copies are available on YouTube. But while it may be of interest to someone to understand how much work went into these shorts, there's little entertainment here to see that isn't already available elsewhere.

Created as a gag for Stan Laurel's birthday, That's That! is a slapdash and poorly edited smattering of random clips from The Laurel and Hardy Murder case, Way Out West and other films peppered with ridiculous sound effects to make an unintelligible short that makes us wonder "What did I just watch?" Apparently there are pieces that ended up on the cutting room floor and toward the end there are a few outtakes of people swearing, so for the very die-hard collector there are minor pieces of interest. However, the fact that money was put into preserving and restoring this when there are so many other better and more worthy films is a bit frustrating.

I had the opportunity to sit down and watch the short film "That's That!" from 1938 here in 2023 for the very first time ever. And I figured that I would opt to give it a go, I mean, 8 minutes and it being a Laurel and Hardy thing, so why not?

This have to be the worst abomination ever spawned with the comedy duo Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. It was a random chaotic cut of various scenes from various of their other movies cut together in an attempt to create a coherent storyline. It failed most utterly at the hands of writer Bert Jordan. This was without a doubt a farce.

Not even a single laugh, because you have no clue as to what is going on. The movie just went cut, next scene, cut, next scene, constantly. So there was no red thread to the storyline, and you didn't get to laugh, because everything was just cut to shreds. Very poor editing here.

Do yourself a favor and skip on "That's That!". It just simply isn't worth the 8 minutes.

My rating of "That's That!" lands on a one out of ten stars.